Letter to Adolf Cluss, mid-November 1853

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To Adolf Cluss in Washington

[London, mid-November 1853]

... As regards the Reform, I shall see what can be done in Germany and Paris. Pieper is now in business and spends from 9 in the morning until 8 at night in the City. So what with his work as correspondent for the Union, has little time. He'll do something. If any money is forthcoming, I would suggest that Eccarius get some first so that he doesn’t have to spend all day tailoring. In accordance with an agreement made with me, he will now be sending articles regularly. Do try and see that he gets something, if at all possible. With regard to his French articles, Jones is no longer printing them, nor has he returned me the manuscript, which isn’t therefore available dans ce moment. Jones being away on an agitation tour. I have written to him about it, however. I have also asked Heise. Diversity is desirable and, by consorting with us Heise will, I believe, change for the better. I have asked Lupus and Dronke through Engels. Probably little will come of it. In Lupus’ case, age and bachelorhood combine to lead him into mischief during this sorry interregnum.

Not yet seen Willich’s damp squib. The war news takes up almost my whole attention and there’s no time left to think about the great Willich. Despite the electric telegraph, the news arrives late, is very confused and fragmentary and has, moreover, all passed through the hands of the Vienna police — i.e. been censored. The news from Constantinople is of course much delayed. The heroes of democracy are preparing to march. An evil omen for the Turks.

Quant à Willich, I should much prefer it if I could be spared personal statements and my contribution be confined to producing, for the feuilleton of the Reform, a psychological — or rather, phenomenological — genre picture of this shabby philistine’s ‘form of consciousness’.

Last Tuesday, at the same time as your letter, I received one from Klein which was, I must say, most delightfully written, witty and considered. He tells me that he, too, will make a statement against Willich, since he can prove that the man was a fraud all the time he was in London. Klein is obsessed with the idea that you people are treating him very much de haut en bas. I shall try and smooth out this difference.

As regards the Tribune, the most ingenious way of handling the thing might have been to make people believe they ‘recognised my style’. I have become very thick with Urquhart as a result of the Palmerston article. To help me, he has sent me several books — with which, however, I was already familiar...